[Ti] Titanium screen spasms! Epilepsy?

[John Pariseau]

> For the last week or so, my Titanium 500 has been experience screen 
> spasms. What happens is the a part of the display twitches, then 
> spasms, then starts freaking out in a schizoid display. It almost 
> seems similar to when I used to run the old display tests under Norton 
> Utilities. It lasts for varying lengths of time--the longest about 5 
> secs. Others are shorter in duration. The problem seems to be getting 
> worse.


I have complained about a similar, and very infrequent problem like 
yours. Mine, however, was unprovoked.

One possible, albeit very improbable cause:

USB shorting

While I never mentioned it, the times I had the weird screen 
flickering, I had an MS optical wheel mouse plugged in. Now, the mouse 
went through "alot" of abuse, and like the Apple Pro Optical mice, has 
the nasty habit of developing a short at the front of the mouse. This 
one, however, developed one at the USB plug. From time to time, the 
mouse light will go out, and I need to move the cord around into a 
better position. A system restart stopped the problem. Perhaps you 
should try unplugging all unnecessary hardware. I have my doubts that 
this simplified explanation really explains what is going on.

However, my problem hasn't gotten worse - my Ti only had two bouts of 
it. Once, many months ago, and just recently, last month. The last bout 
lasted until I restarted, the first only happened a few times.

If you have AppleCare, take it in. Wait at the Apple store so the 
"genius" can take a look at what is happening. Or, get a camcorder, and 
video tape the screen.